Our first visit back to The Finborough Theatre since the pandemic. Coincidentally, our previous visit was our last visit to any theatre before the pandemic, and that piece was also at least partly about Israel:
Since that 2020 visit, The Finborough has been awarded a coveted Pub Theatre Of the Years Award 2022, which is quite something…
…especially as The Finborough currently has no pub. But that’s not important to us, as we were always “only there for the theatre”, not “only here for the beer”.
Here is a link to the Finborough’s resources on The Retreat.
Janie and I were both very taken with The Retreat. It is set in 1993, in the shadow of the Oslo Peace Accords, although the play is set in Canada, pitting a Hebrew School teacher/would-be script writer with a pair of seasoned but warring (with each other) film makers.
If the play errs at all, it is a bit long, running to nearly two-and-a-half hours. Ironic, really, given that the central conceit of the play is about script editing. But that space gives room for the characters to develop and for the darker recesses of their behaviours to become apparent to the audience.
Janie and I thought all four cast members performed very well but were especially taken with Jill Winternitz as the somewhat vulnerable young woman and Jonathan Tafler as her father.
We’re back at The Finborough in a few week’s time to see the next thing and can hardly wait after enjoying this production. We’d almost forgotten how much we like this type of small-scale intimate drama.